Idea
by proudhon-has-a-posse
Summary: When Jack proposes an interesting thought offhand, Shepard takes it to heart: she's had enough of saving the damn galaxy over and over. Time to go pirate...but unforeseen circumstances lead to landing on an unexplored, unknown planet...
1. Part 1

Note: this is a draft work, and has been only lightly proofread. Grammatical problems/mistakes may be present.

* * *

><p>Part I.<p>

_Wherein Shepard discovers a newfound enthusiasm for her work with an Idea proposed offhand, the consequences of the Idea, and where it leads her._

* * *

><p>"Maybe you could go pirate, Shepard... live like a queen..."<p>

As much as she was dedicated to the cause of stopping the Collectors, stopping the Reapers, saving the world just that one more time, that thought... that _idea_... it infected her mind like a parasite. When she was standing there in the bowels of the ship, half in conversation, half staring, admiring, secretively tracing the outlines of Jack's body with her eyes - when Jack said it, it seemed like ... nothing.

But now, dealing with Cerberus, the gang of murderous xenophobes who butchered her precious Normandy, who tortured Jack, who set _thresher maws_ deliberately upon her and her unit on Akuze, the smug self-satisfaction of the Illusive Man, it begun to sound more and more attractive every day. "If Cerberus is supposed to be the epitome of humanity..." she thought, "If the Alliance has turned its back on those colonies..."

Shepard opened up the shutters in the captain's quarters, staring up at the swirling blue light of the Cerenkov radiation from particles escaping the mass effect field, rapidly decelerating as they drifted out of the field. "I could put it all behind me... they'd find someone else to sort this ...mess out, surely... Miranda, Jacob... I'd have to let them off somewhere... _Liara_..."

"EDI, get me Liara, please..."

:::

The sound of the Shadow Broker vocoder answered the call "To make a submission, say "Submission"... to check on the staus - "

"Athame". The password. An eternity, waiting for the automated systems to traceroute back to the Normandy, exchange keys to verify identity, and establish secure protocols.

Finally, it was Liara's soft voice.

"Shepard."

"How are you, aeri?"

"I'm doing fine; what happened? What's wrong?"

"Nothing! Nothing at all!"

"You always call me that when you have news that I'm not going to like, you know."

No use beating about the bush, Shepard. "I've been thinking about going rogue."

Silence; another eternity. The Reapers have come and gone by now, for sure -

"I'm coming with you, if you do. At least until the storm blows over. There'll be a storm, you understand. There'll be no turning back."

"That's why I had to be sure...I -"

"I'm not losing you again", she said, softly.

"You won't. I'll come by. I better sort out the crew first."

"Good luck. And all my love."

:::

The team shuffled in nervously; they knew they hadn't made planetfall for weeks, not even on those miscellaneous errands that came in by email. Miranda avoided eye contact with Shepard but remained upright, surveying the room. Garrus took some cajoling, but was parted from calibrating the main weapon on the promise that he'd get back to it within half an Earth-standard hour.

Everyone was here, cramped together in the briefing room - except Jack was missing. She radioed down. "Jack, you'll want to hear this. Promise. You'll enjoy it.". A few minutes later, and the pneumatic doors hissed open. They all looked at her, trying to smuggle away scowls. Jack saw Shepard with a slight smirk on her face and relaxed, and sat up on the railing of the holographic communicator, distorting the wireframe image of the Normandy.

"Listen, I'm not one for fancy speeches, so I'll just say this. As of zero-hundred Earth-Zulu, the Normandy will no longer be under Cerberus, nor Alliance, nor any organizational control, command, or influence. Any crew member who disagrees with this directive will have an opportunity to disembark at a port of their choosing within 72 hours from zero-hundred, however they will not be permitted to reembark in future. The rest of the crew who remain aboard will have the ability to take furlough whenever they choose."

After a few seconds of looking at their shocked faces, Miranda said "You can't do that", matter-of-factly.

"Where would you like to disembark?", Shepard said, without missing a beat.

:::

After everyone said their piece, those who wanted to leave - or needed to think - left the room. The few that were left: Mordin, Legion, and Jack.

"Well, Shepard. I didn't think you'd actually do it." Jack looked genuinely impressed.

"Still want to be my first mate?"

"Hell yeah. Who are we going after first?"

"No one. Well, not yet, anyway. Look, those out there that want to cross us, _have_ crossed us, they'll come to fear us. And hell, they'll fear you, too. But this is important - they've got to have it coming to them, or it'll be worthless. We'll become just like them, like Cerberus, like the Alliance, like everyone else who screwed us over. I'm not having that."

"Am just scientist, Shepard." Mordin piped up, taking a sharp breath. "No interest in pursuing Cerberus or Alliance."

Shepard didn't look at him. She had her eyes locked on Jack, waiting for a response.

"Your ship, Shepard, your rules." She smiled. Genuinely, it seemed.

Shepard gave her a wink.

:::

Shepard walked up to the cockpit; the crew hushed as she walked by, saying nothing. She rolled her eyes.

There was one more crew member to check up on.

"Everything okay up here, Joker?"

"Word is you're going pirate, Commander. Leaving Cerberus."

"Wasn't ever _with_ Cerberus, Joker. And I'm not going to be robbing other innocent ships or anything like that. You going to be okay with that, Joker?"

"Hell, Shepard, I can't leave the Normandy. She'd miss me too much. And I can't leave you without a good pilot. Anything else you were after?"

"That'll be all."

"See you, Commander."

:::

The Normandy engaged stealth systems just as they entered the Hourglass Nebula and started the painstaking sublight journey to Hagalaz; if Liara was going to return to the Normandy, measures would have to be taken. While the Shadow Broker ship was carefully hidden within the storms of the upper atmosphere, an ordinary shuttle wouldn't have any stealth systems and would be easily scanned.

Shepard stood in the front cabin with Joker, looking out the cockpit windows. "EDI, can you establish a secure channel?"

"One moment", EDI replied, then Liara's voice was audible: "Are you ready, Shepard? I need you to send someone down in a shuttle and dock. I'll then come onboard with a jammer that should mask the fact that I'm on board the shuttle."

Shepard radioed Legion. "Make your way to the shuttle. Flight program's been downloaded already. You're just playing decoy, wait ten minutes before you return on the shuttle."

"Understood, Shepard-Commander."

The shuttle looked tiny out the window as it sped towards the cloud tops, gradually diminishing in size until it was no longer visible. They couldn't risk radar or ladar pings in case of detection. Shepard's heart was quietly racing; the mission was a cakewalk, it was Liara: Liara who stood beside Shepard as she reduced Sovereign to a burnt cinder, Liara who could hold her own against Cerberus, Liara who carved her way through the Shadow Broker and his minions ... it was Liara: the lonely woman Shepard glimpsed when they joined minds, though brilliant and full of potential, Liara who knew every inch of Shepard's body and how to excite every nerve with her touch, Liara, gentle as a summer's breeze back on Earth and glorious as a CME from a type-O star ... was it any wonder that Shepard was clawing the leather back of Joker's flight chair with one hand, unconsciously?

It was one thing to get into the Shadow Broker base. It was another thing to get her out.

"Commander, shuttle's back in visual range." Joker pointed to a dark speck against the clouds, gradually getting larger.

Shepard wordlessly walked off briskly to the shuttle bay.

:::

She was here. Of course she was here. Back on board. "Just like old times", Garrus would have said, if he was here; he was in the weapon bay, still ruminating on the bombshell Shepard released on the crew. Shepard clutched the asari standing before her, a mix of relief and longing satisfied. It seemed like years had passed since they had last met - though in reality it had been a few weeks - Shepard's deliberation and vacillation about Jack's idea made time seem to pass much longer, but now, as she had the things that were the most important closest to her, the cloud that hung above her head was lifting and the skies were clearing.

"You can let go now", Liara said, smiling a little.

"It's been a while, you know?"

"Dear, it's been three of your weeks since we last were together."

"Has it?" Shepard scratched her hair, unenthusiastically, embarassed. "Um... Miranda and Jacob left already, they threatened violence if I waited, I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner; you can get your gear set up in her office if you like?"

Liara put a hand to Shepard's face. "That will do fine. Come by later, won't you?"

Shepard had her composure regained. "Will do."

:::

Shepard stood at the galaxy map podium, studying the known and Citadel-controlled systems. From the vantage point, she could just make out the blue haze from the cockpit windows. For a minute, it seemed like she was on one of the ships of old, water-farers of legend: gripping the railing in front of her was like holding the helm, the blue shock front the ocean, vast ahead. The universe felt fresh with potential, like when she first stood upon that same podium on the first Normandy; now she was no longer the hand of the Alliance, or Cerberus, or humanity, or _anyone_, she could wander the stars as she pleased.

And that had provoked some primal, dopaminergic, part of her brain. It felt _good_. It'd be hard, certainly. No credits, no funding will come in by default. Without money, keeping the Normandy in top condition will be harder and harder; then there's the matter of food...

The lift chimed behind her and the doors hissed open. It was Garrus.

"Shepard. Got a minute?"

"Garrus. What can I do for you?"

"I've been thinking. Look, I don't want to leave for good, but ... I need some purpose, a goal, and since you're not going after the Collectors any more, I think I need some time on my own - "

"I understand. We'll be here when you're ready to return to us. It's not like we're not going to have any purpose aboard, but there's a lot of us finding the ropes."

Garrus turns, then looks back. "Thanks, Shepard."

A pang of guilt, then it goes away. You know who your friends really are at a time like this, Shepard thinks. But the thought doesn't do anything to make her feel any better. The feeling of exhilaration she was feeling a moment ago has already dissipated into the ether.

:::

Shepard use to hate going to see Miranda, and would normally avoid it at most opportunities. The walk out of the elevator and forward port had the same limbic dread even though she was no longer aboard, and no longer would be. It was a pleasant, but odd surprise to see Liara sitting at Miranda's desk, brow arched, with a thin smile; Shepard knew that look.

"You've got something for me, haven't you?"

"Several things, in fact."

Shepard glanced around the room. There were a few boxes on the bed, and a few large storage libraries crammed into the remaining space; Liara was wearing a small earpiece and visor, now.

"I've got to stay connected, now." Liara informed her, tapping the earpiece. "And you've got to maintain cashflow. I've found two points of interest that may be of use. My other parent, on Illium, was always aware that dependence on Reaper technology was foolhardy - "

"- Wait, you knew all this time?" Shepard asked; she had suspected the bartender was related to Liara, but she never had anything more than a hunch.

Liara didn't say anything, and just shot her a glance that seemed to say, "You're better than this, Shepard. Catch up, already." Shepard nodded.

"- and the ideal way to progress would be to adapt along technological lines of our own development. Are you familiar with the concept of universal assemblers?"

"No clue." Shepard said, looking blank. Liara looked disappointed.

"It's a testament to the technological grooming of the Reapers that this idea seemed to have disappeared. A universal assembler was a theoretical device that could rearrange matter at the atomic level, into anything that you like, food, machinery, ... weapons. It surfaced in Earth fiction in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and the concept seemed to die out some time after the First Contact War. Of course, it found its way into asari science fictional works as well, and died out in much the same way."

Liara leaned forward slightly, obviously excited.

"I've found a non-Citadel system who are developing one. They've nearly got it complete, too."

"So we've solved our maintenance problems for the forseeable future?" Shepard asked. Liara looked mildly annoyed that Shepard wasn't getting this, then softened a little.

"If we can get our hands on this, then we've solved maintenance, we've solved repairs, we've solved food and water, we've solved sublight fuel, we've solved the need to _buy_ anything...there's just one issue. The machine... I've obtained technical documentation through stealth satellite feeds and have made an educated guess based on how it's designed to work, and given that there's no element zero within five light years of the system in question - "

Liara saw Shepard's hand on her arm.

"It can't assemble...manufacture element zero." Liara finished, looking for a reaction in Shepard's face.

Shepard knew Liara well enough to know that Liara mostly always had found a solution or a proposal to fix a problem, if she found one - so, Shepard waited...

"However, I've also scouted out a system thick with element zero. I've managed to distract and buy off attention about this system. I was keeping this information as something of an emergency fund, but ... I'm giving this to you, love. You will need it more than I, soon."

"I... thank you. Are you sure? I mean -"

"If we manage to get a working assembler, it will make the entire economic system irrelevant. The only _other_ thing you can't assemble is information. Somehow, the Brokerage will survive."

"And _you'll_ survive, I know it. Listen, you were upset at me on Illium, chasing Vasir. You were wondering if it was a bad thing that you needed my help...I always believed in you, Liara. Honestly, you could have taken the Shadow Broker down on your own, if you really wanted to. I _wanted_ to be there with you... look, this is really stupid, talking like this is all business, as if we were at your desk in your old office. Come up to my cabin with me."

Liara gave a small nod, lost in thought, then smiling as Shepard stood, waited for her. Liara was asleep, breathing quietly, lying in the crook of Shepard's left arm. She had an arm draped casually over Shepard's bare torso. Shepard was not asleep; her mind was awake, thinking about the idiotic things one does when reverie finds itself elusive, staring out the ceiling viewport.

:::

Everything was awfully quiet. The Normandy wasn't under power, but simply orbiting around an uncharted system. The engines were silent, there was only the barely inaudible high-pitch of the onboard electrical systems and the quiet low-frequency rumble of life support, and Liara, breathing.

Do asari snore?

Shepard tried picturing the asari counsellor snoring. It seemed incredulous enough to be immediately dismissable. Asari seem either too regal or too far evolved to still have upper-airway breathing problems when they sleep.

A quiet hiss from outside. Thruster auto-maintaining orbit. Shepard exhaled as well, quietly, not wanting to wake Liara. "I should get some sleep", Shepard thought to herself, and purposefully shut her eyes. As if they were springs, they opened again by their own volition. Every muscle in her body felt sore, her energy spent, but her mind raced on, heedlessly...

Is asari skin any different from human skin? Liara's arm flexed slightly in her sleep. It ... felt like skin, Shepard supposed...however, it was hairless. What about thermoregulation... it made a lot of sense if asari were coldblooded... evolved from parthenogenetic lizards - Shepard thought back to long ago, when she got into this Reaper business, Liara and when they first met - and said to herself in her mind "I'm thinking about my girlfriend like a science experiment", and tried to think of something else.

Shepard reached over to the shutter control on the bedside table and the shutters closed with a click. The room was pitch black now, save for the thin glow of the table controls and the terminal up on her desk.

"I should write Mom..." Shepard thought to herself, then fell asleep.

:::

The Normandy was a lot quieter, a lot less full of random workers she had no emotional connection to; she counted off who was left as she walked through the crew deck: Legion, Liara, Mordin up in the science labs, Jack down in engineering...Tali. Tali was the last one left. It was the third day, too, before they'd head off towards unknown horizons. Tali still hadn't said anything one way or another.

Time to go pay her a visit.

:::

"Look, Shepard... we've been through a lot together, yes? I trust you. I just don't understand this. The Admiralty board renamed me, I'm no longer "_vas Neema_" now, so I will follow you, but I don't understand this at all..."

Tali was pacing through the cramped engineering deck.

"I mean, I'm glad that you've gotten rid of the Cerberus people, but ... you're not interested in stopping the Collectors? In the past, when there was a threat on your people, you would be the first in line to stop it. And now?"

"Now, I'm tired of being pushed around like I'm just a pawn in someone else's game. I'm my own woman, with my own life. Someone else will stop them. Why wouldn't they? Why does it have to be me, all the time, Tali? Why do I have to risk everything I care about for some group that means nothing to me?"

Shepard was nearly shouting. She didn't mean to argue with her. She softened her voice.

"You know, this is the first time ... in a long time ... I've ever said 'no', Tali. I joined the Alliance military because my parents were in the Alliance military, not because I _wanted_ to join. I felt I had to. I didn't want to become a Spectre, I did it because I was told it'd be for the good of all humanity. And who am I to turn down the entirety of the human race? I was told to hunt down Saren, those were my orders...you become so good at following _orders_ in the military, it becomes so hard to think for yourself... nobody even asked me if I wanted to be brought back to life, they just did it..." Shepard walked away, looking up at the drive core, her head sore, feeling like she was going to explode into a million pieces.

Tali said, very quietly, "I'm with you, Shepard. I told you, you're my captain."

:::

"Hey." Jack said, as Shepard walked down the steps to the lowest part of the ship.

She was lying on one of the support struts - apparently quite comfortable - with a data tablet in her hands, reading.

"Anything interesting?" Shepard asked, nodding towards the tablet.

"It's nothing." Jack jumped down with lithe grace, and stood eye to eye with Shepard. Shepard didn't press the issue, even though she was curious.

"Listen," Jack continued, "when I decided to come here, I totally expected this Cerberus crap to start eating at me. Goody Two-Shoes Commander Shepard to rub off on me. But hey, a little bit of me's rubbing off on you."

She paused for a second.

"I like it. It looks good on you, Shepard."

Shepard smiled wanly. "I'm only sorry it took so long to realize that this is what I should be doing. I should have told Cerberus to die in a fire as soon as they rebuilt me -"

Jack look surprised " - wait, what did they do to you?"

"I thought it'd be common knowledge - you didn't see it in the files I gave you? Look, I died two years ago. Cerberus got my body and brought me back to life. Filled me with cybernetics for the bits they couldn't fix."

Jack sat back down on her bed, legs apart, leaning forward. She broke eye contact.

"Shit."

"I mean, it's nothing like Cerberus put _you_ through, and it's not like I'm not happy to be alive, and I've got Liara... but they didn't bring me back for me. They brought me back for them."

Jack leaned back and looked at Shepard again.

"Looks like you and me have another thing in common. Hey, we blew up the facility at Pragia - wanna find and blow up the Illusive Man's ship or something? You have to bring me along if you are."

Shepard smiled. "I wouldn't dream of doing otherwise. But Cerberus comes later. We have to deal with a few things first. For example, you know where you can get a ship resprayed?"

:::

The crew were assembled around a large glass window onto the respray dock, some sitting, absorbed in other matters. Jack, Shepard, and Liara were standing, watching the process as the spray nozzles stripped the Cerberus paint from the vessel and applied the new coat.

"I'm honoured." Liara simply said. The Normandy was to be painted entirely in black, except for the twin-chevron logo of the Shadow Broker on the wingtips and tails.

"Isn't this a bit like announcing your presence here?" Shepard asked.

"Hopefully not. They'll think this is _a_ Broker ship, not _the_ Broker ship." Liara noted absently, apparently mesmerized by the halting, robotic motion of the nozzles on the rails.

"So, no skull and bones on the tail, then?" Jack asked, a little disappointed.

:::

"Fifteen minutes to arrival at NCS-55833, Commander", Joker radioed in. The system with the assembler; the Citadel council never bothered to name unincorporated systems. The nearest relay was eighteen light years out, but they'd come in hot with FTL.

They weren't expecting anyone.

Shepard, Liara, Tali, and Jack assembled in the cockpit area, watching as the Normandy dropped out of FTL, just on the edge of the system's bow shock, out of view from any planetary scanners, if any existed.

"Shepard. I am detecting one cruiser stationed at the heliopause. It has a transponder signature corresponding to that of the Citadel." EDI noted.

"Citadel ships? Out here? What are they doing?" Shepard pondered. Unincorporated systems weren't patrolled by the Citadel fleet, unless there were active talks to try and get the planets to join. "The Citadel could be trying to secretly get the tech for themselves... but they couldn't, it's too disruptive..."

Liara made the connection. "It's a blockade."

"Are we stealthed? Can we get past them?" Shepard asked the room.

"Stealth systems are currently operational, Shepard, but there would have been a heat signature flare between the point of dropping out of FTL and enabling stealth systems. The other ship may already be aware of our presence." EDI replied. Shepard stared at the blip on the computer screen for a minute.

"Bring us in within firing range and then drop out of stealth." Shepard ordered.

"Are you insane? They'll be able to fire upon us too, you know." Joker said.

"We'll just have to fire first."

:::

The Normandy raced to firing range and ground to a halt.

"Coming out of stealth now, Shepard." Joker jabbed a finger at a panel.

The radio came to life. "Unidentified vessel, this is the Citadel ship _White Sword_, you are approaching a restricted system, do not proceed further or you will be fired upon."

"You think they'll still accept my old Spectre credentials?" Shepard asked, to no one in particular. No one said anything. She looked around. Everyone seemed on-edge.

Shepard tapped her earpiece. "_White Sword_, requesting authorization to pass, Spectre number #3891811, sending credentials."

Radio silence.

Shepard raised an eyebrow, impatiently.

One by one, additional blips on the scanner appeared. More ships were decloaking.

"Definitely a blockade." Liara added, nervously.

"Joker, have you ever performed FTL travel within a star system?" Shepard asked casually.

"Hell, no. The distances and timings are way too hard to get right. You could be off by a hundred million klicks."

"EDI, can you plot and fly an FTL jump from here to the second planet?"

"I can get you to one million kilometers from the planet, to allow for radiation dissipation and error margins."

The radio came to life again. "Unidentified vessel, authorization denied. Turn back immediately or we will fire."

"Go to hell." Jack said on her earpiece.

"Fire main gun on _White Sword_ and make the jump, EDI."

A bright streak erupted across the cockpit window, then the ship was replaced with various bits of shrapnel, bulkhead, and before anyone could absorb what had just happened, the view became an unfamiliar-looking garden world, far off in the distance, with a single moon.


	2. Part 2

Part II.

_Wherein Shepard finds her way, finds Herself, and an incident that leads her to a Strange New World._

* * *

><p>1.<p>

"Shepard. This will be a first contact situation, if you go down there." Liara said, with an undernote of warning. "I'd advise caution. This will be your first."

Shepard stopped for a moment, then nodded.

"Better go alone, then."

"You should bring some people along to give you advice, though, even if you decide to make the negotiations on your own." Liara added.

"You're just dying to see this place, aren't you?"

"Well..._yes_, but —"

"All right. Liara, Jack, assemble at the shuttle bay in half an hour. The rest, to your posts."

Liara pulled Shepard aside as the rest of the crew leave the cramped cockpit. "Do you think that's wise?" she asked.

"What is?"

"That you're bringing that ... Jack with us, down to the planet."

Shepard took Liara's hands and looked right into her eyes.

"I know what I'm doing."

:::

Shepard walked down to the shuttle bay and eyed the odd looking craft; "I miss the damned Mako." she muttered to herself.

Jack, Liara, and Shepard enter the craft, saying nothing to each other. The doors close and seal, and the automated systems begin to manoeuver the shuttle out the docking bay and towards the planet.

Shepard checked the flight time. Two hours shuttle time to radio down and land at the coordinates Liara provided — an airport near some sort of administration center. No one is looking at each other.

Then Jack turned, smiles genially. "So, this is that blue chick I heard so much about?"

Liara places thumb and forefinger on the bridge of her nose.

"Say hello, Liara." Shepard says, casually.

"Hello, Jack." Liara brings out her words on a wheelbarrow.

Jack winks at Shepard, then nods.

Shepard checks the flight time. One hour, fifty five minutes shuttle time to go. No one is looking at each other again.

2.

It was driving down with rain when the shuttle landed.

"Lemme just grab my coat" Jack said.

"You have a coat?" Liara asked, a little incredulously.

"It's fucking raining out there. Of course I have a coat."

The three stood outside the shuttle; they were on the apron of a giant hangar on some nondescript airport. Some personnel in military uniform were standing around with odd looking rifles, but with the visibility so low, it was difficult to make out more.

"I guess we're heading for that." Shepard tilted her head towards the hangar, and they slowly made their way.

At the hangar a single officer was stationed outside the door, outside, in the driving rain. There was a light fixture above; they could see the person's face. He sniffed the air as they approached, slightly baring what looked like a mouthful of canines, beneath felid eyes.

"You've been expected. This way." he muttered, and turned to open the door.

"Yep, even the tail." Jack whispered to Liara. It solicited a little smile from the asari.

The man scowled at Jack, staring intently at her.

:::

Inside was dim. A table with three people was placed at the center of the hangar. They didn't get up to meet them.

"Don't make excessive eye contact." Shepard warned the others, quietly.

At the table, there were three plastic folding chairs. They sat.

Shepard, in her peripheral vision, could make out that the cat in the middle was a woman, with two males flanking her.

"I hear you are looking for some technology," a voice asked, husky and sibilant. The woman.

"I am Commander Shepard and these are my esteemed officers Liara T'Soni and Jacqueline Nought of the free ship _Normandy_, and we are pleased to —"

Shepard was cut off.

"We are not interested in what words you give yourself or your ship." she hissed.

Everyone was silent for a minute.

Shepard closed her eyes and opened them. "We are only interested in the assembly technology that you have developed."

The cat woman leaned back. Was that purring?

"Is that _all_ you are after? Really? Such a modest exchange. We can offer so much more."

Liara took a turn to talk: "We would be interested, but we are in a bit of a hurry."

The woman leaned forward, into a shaft of dim light. She seemed to be covered in radiant orange fur, but had what seemed to be a warmth in her eyes. She closed her eyes, and then opened them, like Shepard had done a few minutes ago.

"We want... information." the cat woman said.

Liara smiled.

"What do you want to know?" Shepard asked.

"There were five energy signatures in the cloud just outside our system. You will tell me what they are."

"Aliens. Not friendly ones." Jack said.

"Their mission is to keep you inside your system. They won't let you leave. Do you have spaceflight technology? I am sure they will shoot down any ship attempting to leave the system." Shepard added.

One of the males passed the cat woman a note. She glanced at it.

"And you shot down one of them for us already, we have observed. Good. You will eliminate the others. Then we will transmit the information you are seeking. You will do this for us."

"Gladly." Jack said.

3.

The Normandy screams out of the system towards deep space, running hot, daring for a fight. Everyone was at battle stations. Shepard stood behind Joker in the cockpit alone.

"To all decks: The people captaining the ships out there are either slow and out of practice or are just VI programs. Either way, we have a good chance of wiping these guys out. We're going in guns blazing here."

As the Normandy passed the orbit of the last planet in the system, the ship juddered and shook as the shields absorbed a volley of energy fire.

"Shepard. Ship remains cloaked, but I have triangulated the source from the weapons fire." EDI noted.

A radar mark appeared. "Blind fire to that location, Jack, and don't stop."

The mark changed colour to a red dot, the excess weapons fire forcing it out of stealth.

"Gotcha." Shepard whispered to herself. "Hold fire, Jack." Shepard radioed.

"What the fuck?" Jack shouted.

"Hold fire, Jack!" Shepard shouted back into the mic.

"Joker, run us around the orbit path, evasive manoeuvers."

The enemy ship, still in pursuit, kept firing as the Normandy danced around the laser fire.

Four red dots appeared on radar, closing in on the Normandy's current position, approaching the outermost planetoid.

"Ever play Chicken, Joker?" Shepard asked to Joker.

:::

The Normandy hurtled straight towards one of the enemy cruisers, one still on its tail, still firing, right above the planet.

"Joker, on my mark, engage stealth and slingshot this rock."

The radar target and the Normandy mark nearly merged. An automated alarm came on.

"Now!"

The Normandy dropped out of the path of the cruiser, and the tailing ship slammed right into it without realizing what had happened. As the Normandy came back around through the slingshot, Shepard noted quietly "Don't drop back out of stealth yet. Line 'em up. We'll shoot right through them."

Joker nodded. Old ships, probably haven't been cycled through in a while. Hopefully cut through like a hot knife through butter...

"Drop the shutters. I want to make sure this looks right."

Joker had matched the velocity of the two remaining ships. Frigates, they looked like, still moving towards the planet. "Probably confused them all to hell." Shepard thought.

"Jack, fire main gun."

She was right. Both ships got sliced through, obliterated.

:::

The ship was silent. Shepard stood, staring out the cockpit, unmoving, shrapnel tumbling, cascading in their own microgravity.

"Incoming broadcast, Shepard." said EDI.

"Shepard. I'm on it." Liara radioed up, and after a few minutes: "It's the schematics, all the data. We've got what we need."

Shepard turned around, and headed out of the room.

4.

Shepard started unclipping bits of her armour as she entered her cabin, leaving them lying helter-skelter on the floor, and makes a beeline for the shower. Her muscles felt weary and sore, and the near-scalding hot water would soothe them.

Shepard encased herself in a towel and left the bathroom. "Those Cerberus schmucks at least knew how to provide decent towels", Shepard thought. She was surprised to see Liara sitting on her bed, wearing one of Shepard's shirts, with her legs folded, trying very hard to wear a neutral expression on her face.

Liara pats the bed, and Shepard climbs on and sits the same way, facing her, unclothed.

"Are you ready to tell me why, now?" Liara asks.

"Why what?"

"Why you did what you did what you did. Why you cut ties with everyone."

"I didn't want to do it any more, Liara. It's as simple as that."

Shepard nods at Liara's chest. "You look good in that, you know."

"Please, Shepard. It's not that simple. Talk to me."

Shepard looked down. "Above Alchera... when I was out there, dying... I was... happy — no, that's not right — I was ... I understood what was about to happen."

Shepard takes a moment, tries to put her thoughts in order.

"Let me help." Liara puts her hands to Shepard's face and tilts back her head, and, almost whispering: "Embrace eternity".

Liara and Shepard — simultaneously — were looking out the visor helmet above a blue-grey planet, seeing the remnants and flaming wreckage of the first Normandy.

"My Normandy", Shepard thought. And Liara heard the thought.

"I was free, in that brief moment before the end." Shepard told herself; and Liara was listening.

Liara felt Shepard struggling, despairing — then Shepard relaxes her muscles, stares out at the stars.

"Obligation, orders, universe-shattering calamities meant nothing, because I was going to die, and I couldn't do a thing about it. I felt relieved."

Liara felt Shepard's chest tightening, and the shallowness of her breath, and Shepard had closed her eyes. All Liara could hear was the now shorter inhalation and exhalations against the suit.

It was getting hotter. Re-entry.

Then Liara saw Shepard waking up... Miranda looking over her. Feeling cold, surgical steel.

"Then I was alive again. And it all came back."

In quick succession, Miranda's voice and confusion about thermal clips, shooting mechs with Jacob, the Illusive Man and word about colonies, Horizon, Ashley's disgusted face —

Liara felt Shepard's tension, frustration, weariness; the tiredness Shepard felt, underneath it all, underneath every missions in her memory, dutifully carried out so long ago, weariness even underneath the rapidly firing neurons and adrenaline.

"I was ready to die. I was free. And then I came back."

Shepard felt Liara becoming tearful.

"It's not your fault. I'm glad we have that much more time together. I really am. But I'm not Atlas, my love. I never wanted the weight of the world on my shoulders, let alone the weight of the universe's. How can I do this, Liara? How could they ask this of me?"

Liara saw Shepard through her eyes, younger, in her early twenties, standing in front of a mirror, wearing a woollen jumper, tie, and a pair of immaculately pressed pants. Liara felt the heady mix of excitement and nervousness Shepard was feeling. A date. Soon, in twenty minutes, in that cafe where Shepard and her met on C Deck 3.

Her parents waiting at the door. Her father. "Miss, it's time you signed up. You're old enough now, you can't use that excuse any more on me."

Her mother. "Really, it's not as bad as you say. We'll take you to the recruitment office now, if you like."

Her father. "Bit of responsibility will do you a world of good. We have a reputation to maintain. We're Shepard stock, and ..."

The view goes hazy. Liara surmises to herself: "She must have stopped listening", and Shepard heard her. "I was young... and I didn't have much willpower, so I felt like I didn't have a choice. I never had a choice about my own life. I was a puppet; the right hand of the Alliance... Cerberus...what's so special about me? Why does it have to be me?"

Liara let down her hands. Liara was looking at Shepard again, and Shepard was looking at Liara, crying.

Liara kissed her, and now she understood.

5.

Shepard couldn't sleep. Again.

Jack was lying on her cot, looking completely relaxed. Hearing footsteps down the flight of stairs, she raised herself and spun around in a fluid motion. Shepard wondered what it was about Jack that made her movements always seem so effortless.

"Shepard."

"How've you been?"

"A little pissed about you holding me back in that firefight. But hey, you got the results. Sent those Citadel fuckers to hell, huh."

Shepard rubbed her forehead, saw Jack's tablet, and picked it up.

"They're calling you a traitor, out there, on the extranets. Whole lot of people want your head. Calling you scum of the Earth and all, too." Jack said, casually.

"They're doing what?" Shepard replied, flatly.

"Guess it hit the news back home that you flipped off Cerberus and the Alliance."

"All this... just because I said no to getting myself killed on that suicide mission of theirs?"

Shepard stared ... through Jack, through the bulkheads, out into space and beyond.

"Some shitheel from the Alliance called Grissom says you're 'guilty of committing grave sins against Earth, the Alliance, and humanity, by refusing to come to Earth's aid'." Jack continued

"Shep?"

"They don't deserve it. Humanity doesn't deserve it. They can go burn." Shepard said, fuming, still staring through Jack.

Jack nodded. "Look after number one, Shepard. That's what I always said."

After a beat, Shepard softened slightly, bringing her eyes back in focus, meeting Jack's. "I'll look after you too, though, Jack."

"Well, there's the difference between you and me." Jack leaned back on her cot.

"I'm going to look after everyone on this ship. Whether they like it or not."

Shepard nodded at Jack.

"Whatever you say, boss-lady." Jack shrugged.

:::

Shepard stood at the galaxy map, flicking through the various nearby systems. There was a tension in her back — her muscles clenched like a fist, unyielding.

"This one's too dusty", she muttered to herself. _Flip_.

"This one has storms. All the time." _Flip_.

She heard the soft hiss-clank of mechanical feet behind her, and spun around to see Legion standing behind her, looking intently at her. What was he doing?

"Can I help you?" she asked, a little irritated.

"Shepard-Commander. We have been studying your emotional states via your implant telegraphy for some time."

"You what?" Legion was... well, a bit _weird_, being geth. But this was not helping. Legion took a short step backward.

"We have observed ... a new state."

"What?" Shepard stopped, and took a breath to try and calm herself down. "What, you mean, like a new emotion?"

"Yes. Our lexis is insufficient. Increased rates of blood pressure. Increase rate of heart action. Increase in neurotransmitter (R)-4(1-hydroxy-..."

Shepard looked blank. Legion raised an eyebrow. "Increase in... epinephrine and norepinephrine."

Shepard pinched her eyes shut, trying to think back to basic medical training. "You mean, anger?"

Legion nodded, satisfied. "Anger. We have saved the lexical association. Thank you."

Legion turned to walk away. "Wait. you're saying I've never been angry before?"

"Since monitoring commenced, when you were retrofitted with various cardiac and neural implants, we have not since observed this emotional state."

Legion turned to walk away again. Shepard let him.

"I've never been _angry _before?" Shepard asked herself, out loud.

When the Illusive Man had guilt-tripped Shepard into saving the colonies, Shepard felt manipulated and wronged... but not angry. She would have told the Illusive Man to shove it, right then and there, if she were angry. When she was fighting the Collectors... she felt nothing at all, but the cold mechanics of battle. When she saw Ashley again on Horizon that final time... she felt betrayed.

Shepard walked slowly back to the galaxy map, and started flipping through the catalog again.

Legion was right.

6.

Shepard, Jack, and Liara sat uncomfortably in the shuttle: Liara trying not to make eye contact with Jack, Jack trying to make eye contact with Liara, Shepard, eyeing them both, curiously.

"So..." Jack said, pausing.

At least, she was trying to be tactful, Shepard thought.

"What do asari have between their legs anyway?"

"Shepard!—" Liara protested.

"I mean... you... _do _reproduce after all..." Jack persisted.

"Please! I'm not really up to giving you a lesson on asari reproduction! Not here! Not ever!" Liara said, wearingly.

Jack leaned back. "Hey, was only asking..."

Silence. Blessed silence. Shepard thought.

"I bet it's really freaky. And complicated too." Jack said.

Liara shoved her face into her hands and groaned.

"Hot blue chick like you... Can you blame anyone for asking?"

Liara groaned again, louder.

Shepard shot Jack a pleading look.

"So, Shep. This planet we're headed to. What's the deal?" Jack asked, with the same vivacity she interrogated Liara with.

"We're going hunting. I need to shoot things." she said, a glint in her eye.

"So why are we here?"

"_You_ don't want to shoot things?" Shepard asked, incredulously.

"I always want to shoot things, Shepard. Maim things, stab things, blow up things. All kinds of good."

Liara saw her moment. "So is _that _what you see in her, Shepard? Really?", and tilted her head in Jack's direction, deigning not to look at her.

Jack growled and stood up, and Liara stood to face her.

"Oh, geez. Can we save it for the hunt?"

They both sat down. Begrudgingly. Scowling at each other from across the cabin.

:::

Jack and Liara had both bulky packs on as they disembarked the shuttle in a nearby clearing in what looked to be a temperate, woody forest.

"You never said anything about carrying shit, Shepard." Jack muttered loudly.

Shepard ignored her. She was too caught up in the moment, staring up at the foreign sky, rifle at hand, feeling like it was just her and the world enveloping in front of her.

"C'mon", she said, distractedly, staring off into the woods. "Let's see if we can find us some pyjaks or something."

:::

Jack moaned loudly. Liara chuckled to herself without thinking.

"Bitch, I can tear you apart without laying a finger on you." Jack said.

Liara said nothing, and instead responded by smirking at her.

:::

Shepard was walking down a small path, Liara and Jack trudging along a way behind her, complaining loudly — about each other, about the trip, about how tired they were... Shepard, however, could hear them all clearly. She chose not to interfere; she was here to shoot stuff, not mediate in their squabbles.

"So what are you going to do when Shepard finally dies, make her a zombie?" Jack said.

Liara didn't reply. Shepard stopped dead in her tracks, and waited for the two to catch up to her.

She punched Jack clear in the face. She fell backwards onto the ground; blood trickled down her nose and onto her lips.

Jack grinned, finding something unspoken satisfying.

Shepard turned back towards the path and started walking again.

:::

Shepard crouched behind a rotting log, rifle bipod laying on the log, with Shepard peering intently behind the scope, making minute adjustments to the positioning.

Footsteps behind her.

"Jack, Liara, whoever you are, stop making so much noise so I can make the shot!" she hissed quietly.

"Ma'am, stand up please."

Who the hell was that? Shepard thought, and looked behind her. Some fresh-looking kid in Alliance uniform.

Shepard nodded to herself, slowly. She forgot this was an Alliance world. Now she remembered; she knew this place from back in her Alliance training days.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid this is Alliance property and you're tres—holy hell, you're Shepard, I'm going to get the —"

Liara and Jack finally showed up, trudging through the trees, bickering suddenly ceasing when they both saw the situation they were all in.

"Look, kid, if you know what's good for you, you're gonna walk back and pretend you never saw us."

"A known terrorist, and two of her accomplices? Like hell!"

"Then I'm afraid I'm going to have to shoot you. I'm afraid when the rest of you lot come looking for me, I'm going to have to shoot them all too."

Shepard raised an eyebrow expectantly.

"I'm not betraying the Alliance for my life, for —"

Jack tossed Shepard her pistol, and in the same motion, cocked and fired it.

There was a moment of quiet. A bird chirped in the distance.

"Now we gotta find the rest of them." Shepard said, finally. "If memory serves me right, there's a camp right up that hill. Shouldn't be many; it's the only structure in the place. We should be able to pick off most at a distance."

:::

Shepard stood near the treeline and raised her rifle yet again, and pulled off a clean shot on the solitary guard at the camp border, slumping backward on the ground. Instinctually, she shifted scope position easily to the group of other soldiers that ran out of their tents, and managed to hit two more. Liara and Jack ran out and mopped up the rest.

Shepard stood amidst the tent camp. Seven, in all, lying on the ground, dead. Jack and Liara came back to meet her.

"Must be outside training season. There would normally have been more, back in the day." Shepard said, to no one in particular.

"Let's get back to the ship."

7.

Shepard was milling around the galley, with a packet of crackers on the bench and a jar of salsa she managed to dig out of the back of cold storage. Liara had gone to bed early out of exhaustion of the day's events. Jack retreated to her lair...

Chakwas was in the med bay, feet up on the desk, brandy lolling idly around a glass she swished about in her right hand. They noticed each other, and she came walking out.

"Well, that is an odd combination if ever I saw one." Chakwas looked at Shepard's meal quizzically.

"We need to go for a supply run soon." Shepard said, idly, distracted.

"Can I get you a glass?"

"Mm." Shepard dunked another cracker into the pot of salsa.

"Something on your mind, obviously. A penny for your thoughts?"

Shepard took a drink, staring off away from Chakwas.

"It's nothing... not really. It's just that Jack..."

"Ah, yes, now she is a queer woman..." Chakwas interjected helpfully.

Shepard snorted, taking an instantaneous moment to be childishly amused. Chakwas looked blankly back at Shepard.

She continued. "...tormented and twisted by her past; I don't think that she — thinks — with the same thought processes that someone untainted by her history might."

Chakwas sipped her drink, thoughtfully.

"You'll have to ask her yourself. She hasn't come to see me at all the time she's been on board. As such ... I only know about her through anecdotes, stories..."

Shepard downed the rest of her drink in one gulp and nodded at Chakwas. "Thanks for the brandy."

:::

Shepard found Jack in Samara's old room, sitting legs akimbo, staring outside.

"Taking a wander?" Shepard asked.

"Couldn't sleep."

Shepard thought for a minute. Perhaps, if she was conciliatory enough, it'd annoy her a little to give a detailed enough response.

"Listen, about before... I'm sorry for punching you."

Jack stood up before, smiling. Shepard thought she would be enjoying her unease.

"I'm impressed, Shepard. People around me... it's like they're walking on eggshells. It's ..._funny_." She chuckled to herself for a moment. "Normally, I like that. The intimidation. Tells people to _go fuck off_."

Jack was quiet for a moment.

"But then you waltz along, and you're not like the others. I mean... even you're banging an _alien _... _chick _... for god's sake... It's like nothing ever fazes you. I don't faze you."

She turned to look out the window, away from her.

"Jesus, Shepard, I think you're the only person I've met in so long that wasn't _afraid _of me."

Shepard didn't know what to say. Or do. She stood there for a minute, looking out the window with her, in silence.

8.

Secretly, Shepard loved Omega. When the others were around, she had to make tut-tut sentiments about how much of a hulking mess it was, stick to Cerberus-approved known scouted areas for "safety" — regardless of the fact that she had a pistol and rifle at her side, and complain about getting _shot at_ all the damn time. But she loved the place, even though it was filthy and that everyone seemed like they were out to get you.

She barely even knew of its existence from back in the Alliance days.

Today, she was going to spend the last of her credits on food. Food wasn't the best thing to go to Omega for — you went to Omega to find rare parts, Citadel-frowned-upon industrial lubricants, the odd spot of eezo and other useful minerals. But to get the best food, she'd have to go to the Citadel, and the Alliance would take her into custody on the spot.

Shepard sighed in the airlock, waiting for the pressure equalization routines to complete, realizing they'd be eating Omega food — replicated to perfection by the assembler — until they could happen upon something better by chance.

:::

"What is this, boiled asses?" Jack said, dropping her spoon with disdain, with a bowl of something resembling brown mush in front of her.

"It's supposed to be a kind of fungus, I think?" Liara offered weakly.

The search for something edible on Omega was going badly. There was one shop left — a hole in the wall noodle joint off the beaten track.

They shuffled off down a dimly lit hallway — was that emergency lighting on? — with various vorcha loitering in doorways, hissing at them as they went past.

"There." Shepard said, pointing at a sign written with incomprehensible glyphs, barely more luminous than the dim red lighting.

"Are we going to have to sample the food this time?" Liara asked, with a tone that pleaded for an answer in the negative.

"It's either this or we go hungry, so I guess not?"

Shepard shrugged.

Behind the counter was an asari, looking through them dispassionately to the hallway.

"What's a nice asari like you doing in this part of Omega?" Shepard asked casually.

The asari glared at her. "Serving food. What do you want?"

Shepard looked at the menu. It was incomprehensible, just like the sign. Liara put a hand on Shepard's shoulder: "It's in asari. Basically, they have this dish with noodles in broth for 10 credits each, noodles in broth with assorted vegetables for 12 credits, and raw noodles for 5 credits".

Shepard sighed. "Can I get ten of each sent to my ship, please?" she asked, resignedly.

The asari looked concerned. "Apparently there's a problem... your ship's been impounded?"

Shepard looked straight at her. "What?"

"Yep, it says it's been impounded. No cargo in or out. Looks like you're going to be spending some time here, huh?"

"Prepare the order. I'm going to sort this out."

:::

Shepard walked straight up the entrance to _Afterlife_, knocking out a pair of bouncers that tried to close in and stop her with both fists, and headed for Aria.

"What's this I hear about my ship being impounded?" Shepard announced to the room.

Aria, lounging on the sofa, talking to a lieutenant, finished up her conversation at her leisure.

"Shepard. Good to see you —"

"Cut the crap. What's going on. Haven't we got a good business relationship going on? I got Patriarch to go into hiding just like you wanted —"

"Shepard. The Alliance paid me a _handsome_ sum of money to have your head." she interrupted, a little annoyed. "However, since you _have_ been good to me, I will tell you that there is only a group of ten Alliance soldiers posted at the docking gate until the cavalry arrive."

"I'm sorry. Thank you. If there's anything you need —"

"You owe me one?" Aria finished.

Shepard nodded.

:::

Shepard leaned out on the wall beside the pathway to the docking area, and peeked around.

"No one." she said to the team. "They're probably around the next corner then, right outside the gate. We're going to have to get in their faces."

"No problem." Jack said.

They swapped in cold thermal clips, nodded to each other, and charged down the hall. Liara slid across the corner to the other side and back into cover, and took out three Alliance with a pistol. Jack charged up to one soldier, jumping on him, snapping his neck, and fired a biotic shockwave down the rest of the short passageway, knocking out the rest of the soldiers.

Except one.

Shepard walked slowly up to the thin, weedy-looking man, with his combat armour too large for his frame, stepping over bodies as she approached.

She stopped in front of him, a handspan away from his face.

"Well?" she said to him.

"Ma'am, under the powers vested by the Earth Alliance Military, I am arresting you for the count of treason and murder." he sqeaked, his voice, quavering.

Shepard ejected a thermal clip and loaded a new one.

"Are you going to step aside, or am I going to have to ... _increase _the number of murder counts on my record?" Shepard growled.

He looked blank for a second, then slunk away from Shepard's face and stumbled quickly down the hall.

"You two, get that order sorted. I'll be on the ship." Shepard said to them, eyes fixed on the gate door.

:::

Liara was staring intently at her bowl of noodles in the galley, gathering a single strand and proceeding to eat it meticulously.

Jack wasn't eating.

"You know, this isn't too bad..." Liara said, absently.

Silence. Shepard looked intently at a bulkhead.

"For a pirate ship, we sure aren't having a lot of fun." Jack suggested, sighing.

"You're right. We haven't hit that rich eezo system yet. Did you put it on the galaxy map?" Shepard asked.

Liara had her mouth full. "Mm-hmm."

9.

Of course, she missed the thrill of something new. The simple act of ..._independence_, seemed to sour all her old haunts in the galaxy and made it next to impossible to survive. It would have to be a problem to address later, but now, all she wanted to do was hit the open skies and put everything behind her.

Shepard punched it in on the map. NCS-603225.

She felt a slight kick from the mass effect drive engaging, then a infinitesimal moment of weightlessness — then the entire ship lurched and a deafening screeching and clanging seemed to come from all around.

"Joker. What the hell was that?"

The floors and walls shuddered and groaned.

Another screech and bang. The ship violently stopped, nearly throwing Shepard into the air.

"Emergency stop, Commander... No idea what triggered it. Running a diagnostic —"

_Bang. _Something sounded like it collided off the hull.

"Where the hell are our shields?" Shepard radioed up, sprinting to the cockpit.

No answer.

"All decks, stay where you are and brace for further impacts." Shepard announced, her own voice echoing in her ears.

Joker was frantically looking at scanner readings. The front shutters were down — probably to defend against leaving the cockpit window susceptible to damage.

Shepard jabbed the shutter control. "Let's see what's out there."

Before Joker could protest, several large, glowing blue rocks, from small asteroid size to planetoid size littered the view, forming a haze obscuring a unary solar system.

"Joker, velocity?"

"We're stopped dead."

"Okay. Okay. Let me guess. Those rocks are probably made from pure eezo."

"Uh... yup... scanners seem to confirm it." Joker was clearly unnerved.

"They're slicing right through our shields somehow." Shepard continued, engrossed in the detail of the situation. "Is that even possible?"

"Well, I don't think I want to risk the Normandy testing that theory. Do you?"

"Damage report?"

"Uh... port engines are reporting faults... we have hull breaches on all decks, shields are holding as best they can... uh... we essentially have thrusters and that's it."

"Okay." Shepard punched the intercom button. "All decks, we seem to have come across a navigation hazard. At the moment, we can proceed no further from the Normandy. Tali, can you see to the port engine and oversee autorepair procedures on the hull. Liara and Jack to the shuttlebay please."

:::

"I heard what was going on... it's fascinating. It must be that the element zero in the asteroid field negates a large amount of our shielding. I'm surprised no one's encountered this before..."

Liara was gushing, engrossed; Shepard looked on at her fondly, listening. It was like the old days, back on the first Normandy.

"So, why are we heading out there, again?" Jack interrupted.

Shepard shrugged. "Assess the mining opportunities. See what we can take aboard, what we can end up selling or using..."

"We should also get scans of the planets in the system. Knowledge is power after all..." Liara added.

Jack raised an eyebrow.

:::

Shepard decided to take the wheel of the shuttlecraft. Running the craft on autopilot would be too risky, as they could end up having the same problem with the Normandy — on a much smaller craft, the effects could be far more deadly.

"Why am I here again?" Jack called up to the cockpit area.

"You're my XO, dammit." Shepard shouted back, annoyed at the intrusion, concentrating hard on navigation; the asteroid field was getting denser and denser as they got closer to the center of the system.

"Should be back on the Normandy then." Jack muttered to herself, under her breath.

She looked over at some of the monitoring equipment, trying to keep herself interested. "Three planets. One gas giant, one little rock roasted by that sun, one garden world." Jack said. "Think there'll be life down there?" she asked Liara.

"Unlikely. This amount of element zero permeating the system... most species have adverse affects to high concentrations of element zero, unless they are anything like asari, which is also highly unlikely..."

A beeping sound emanated from the cockpit.

"What's going on? Shit... Shit..." Shepard said to herself. "Joker, can you read? Do you know what the hell is going on with this hunk of crap?"

"Bringing up your telemetry now... looks like your engines are failing, Shep. Must be all that eezo dust out there. You're going to have to set her down fast or you'll be dead in the water." Joker responded.

"Jack, you said there was a garden planet nearby?" Shepard spun round.

"Uh, we're about three million klicks out, Shep." Jack seemed unnaturally calm about the whole matter.

"Joker, I'm gonna have to push her hard till flameout and use inertia to get us the rest of the way. Come pick us up when you've figured out how to move without trashing the hull..."

"Yeah, I'll get right on that." Joker responded, sarcastically.

:::

"Okay, so our engines are out, but we have maneuverability." Shepard said loudly to the crew, not turning around, focusing on the view ahead. "This'll be a tricky landing. Hang on to something."

Shepard broke out from the orbital envelope and started heading down. Jack was still playing with the scanners. "Jesus, is that a city complex down there, by that river?"

"That must mean... the element zero concentrations mustn't be so high on the ground... life down there must have natural biotic abilities, it's a certainty..." Liara mused.

They finally broke down cloud cover, still coming down fairly fast. Shepard started some stomach-churning S-turns to kill speed. Jack stared grimly at Liara, and Liara stared back; they weren't sharing their usual looks of contempt at each other...

"Damn it, damn it, I can't get us far away enough from that city..." Shepard saw the city too, desperate to find a suitable place to land. "Looks like we're only going to make a landing near that mountain there..."

At least the shuttlecraft seemed to be moving less suicidally . "I can get her down in one piece, but it's going to be rough..." Shepard warned.

A few minutes of silence were shared, then everything shook violently, unexpectedly — and then stopped.

They were on the ground.

:::

They flung the doors open: the relief of terra firma won out over the unnerving experience of an unexplored world. The crew stepped onto the ground, seemingly relieved to set foot on solid earth, sharing looks of achievement amongst each other — when they realized they were being watched — watched no less by a human.

"Oh, Maker preserve me." he uttered, shakily. "What are you, apostates?"

Shepard was speechless. No, not a human. The man's facial features were subtly different from a humans — the eyes wider, the nose bridge... and the _ears_... and then the man noticed the shuttlecraft.

"What on earth is _that_? What maleficarum is this?" he said, voice raising with growing fear.

Shepard still found herself a loss for words.

The man stepped backwards a few steps, then ran away.

"Where the hell are we?" Shepard said to them both.


	3. Part 3

_AN: I'm sorry this part has taken so long. The DA pieces are a lot more difficult to write given the constraints, amongst other things, but once the time spent on Thedas starts drawing to a close, I'm hopeful the pace will begin to pick up more rapidly._

* * *

><p>Part III<p>

_Wherein Shepard experiences First Contact of a Different Kind._

* * *

><p>1.<p>

There was a rough path leading down the mountain, a narrow cleft beside a fairly high drop. They could see some sort of city in the distance, hidden beneath the haze, but nothing much else from their high vantage point. And so, begrudgingly, without speaking, they set off gingerly down the trail.

The air was unnaturally still; noiseless. It felt eerie, like ... walking through a cemetery on a windless night, or ... _disturbing _something they had no place disturbing.

A small clearing, an altar placed at a overhang.

"Uh, that fire's blue?" Jack said, a note of worry in her voice.

They stopped, looking around.

Long forgotten whispers through the trees broke the dead silence. They shouldn't stay here for very long.

They shouldn't be here.

"There." Shepard pointed to the trail continuing on, past a row of cairns.

As they walked towards them, the sound of creaking and cracking filled the air, then a throng of skeletons seemed to form themselves spontaneously.

"Jesus!" Shepard said, cocked a pistol, and started firing, dispatching them all in a few short bursts.

Jack and Liara were still staring, transfixed at what they just saw.

"Geez, guys, thanks for the help." Shepard muttered, picking up the thermal clip, juggling it between two hands, waiting for it to cool down.

Suddenly another group of skeletons came stumbling out from the treeline, and with a flash of light, they fell backwards, crumbling back into a heap.

They weren't the only ones astonished.

:::

A woman, more phenotypically human than the strange humanoid before, wearing a long blue-and-red ... coat? gown? hitched the staff she was carrying on her back. She looked on at the group. This one didn't seem scared of them, like the other man was.

She had four others with her, a stout looking woman with orange hair to her left, a buxom, tan skinned lady with two daggers on her back, standing behind her, and another one of the pointy-eared creatures, this one also with a staff at her back, tattoos on her face, and piercing green eyes.

"Do you think they're spirits, Hawke?" the green-eyed one said, looking up at the leader, "and can we see if we can get one of those ...whatever it is they're carrying?"

Before Hawke could speak, she went on.

"Oh! I'm Merrill, and this is Hawke, and Isabela, and Aveline, and - oh, right - what are your names?"

She beamed, and winked knowingly at Hawke.

"Um..." Shepard started, fumbling for words.

Merrill squealed loudly, "Oh Creators, you're blue all over. And your hair! Have you been bathing in lyrium?"

Liara looked confused.

"Uh, this is Liara... Jack... they just call me Shepard..." she said, tilting her head as she introduced them. Remembering something: "aren't you worried we're apostates, or something?"

Hawke and Merrill laughed together. "Why would we be? We're apostates too, you know." Hawke said.

Shepard smiled, warily. "We're from out of town, and we seem to be lost." She looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings, and felt uneasy again. "Know anywhere where I can get a drink or something? My head hurts."

Hawke looked sympathetic. "Of course. Come back to town, and you can tell me about your travels, and - we're going to have to do something about your blue friend there..."

"Yeah, she's from... foreign lands." Shepard offered, unconvincingly.

Hawke nodded, and rummaged in a bag, and fished out another of the long robes, and offered it to Liara. "Looks like you're going to need some help blending in."

"And perhaps one for the delicious one beside her. What a shame." Isabela added, eyeing off Jack's torso.

Shepard looked back. Jack snatched the coat from Hawke, scowling at Shepard.

:::

"Antivan brandy, or so I was told." Hawke poured Shepard a glass. They were sitting by the fire in Hawke's house; Shepard was watching the flames curl and lick the log, and took a sip.

"Wow, that's good."

Shepard felt the warmth of the spirits radiate through her chest, and for the first time in the day, felt the muscles in her back relent and unknot themselves. Relief washed over her forehead.

Merrill was sitting next to Liara, eyeing her head with great curiosity.

"Can I touch them?" Merrill asked, quietly. "Only because they look awfully pretty, you see."

Liara acquiesced, and giggled a little. "That tickles..."

Shepard smiled tiredly. "Look, I'm a terrible liar. I'm ... we're... not from anywhere around here. We're from a different planet. Not even from this system, either. We crashed on the mountain -"

"Sundermount." Merrill interjected helpfully, continuing to be fascinated at the shape of Liara's head.

"- right, and we can't really get back to our ship just yet, so we're going to need to hole up for a while, and we were wondering if you could help us find some sort of accomodation in the meantime?"

"What on earth is a planet?" Hawke asked.

"Right, right... Okay... what do you call this place?"

"Here? This is the city of Kirkwall."

"Right, OK, but where _is_ Kirkwall?"

"In the Free Marches?"

"And where... wait, no. Hang on."

Shepard got up, and started looking around. She grabbed an orange and a grape from a fruit bowl in the library.

"See, this orange is the sun, up in the sky in the daytime, and this grape is where we are now."

"We live on a grape." Hawke said, flatly, after a moment.

"You live on a planet. Where we are now."

"I think I follow." Merrill said.

"Good. Explain it to me later." Hawke said, eyes narrowing.

Shepard took a sip of brandy and sat next to the fire again, peering at Hawke "You're human, though, Hawke. Well, you look human. I thought humans only came from our planet. I don't really know how that happened." Shepard was thinking out loud.

Hawke shrugged. "Here I am!" she announced, somewhat theatrically.

"But _you_, you're ...not." Shepard looked to Merrill, gestured to Shepard's ears. "A-as adorable as you are, of course." she added.

Merrill smiled, and dipped her head a little. "We are the elvhen, the original inhabitants of these lands, here a long time before the humans came."

Shepard paused, then took a long sip. "Elvhen?"

"Or elves. That's what everybody else calls us."

"Elves. Right."

Shepard stared into her glass. This seemed a bit too good to be true. A bit too ... ridiculous, almost. But here they were.

"So, you'll stay with us." Hawke said, finally.

Shepard smiled wanly.

"You're very kind. This has all been a bit _much _for one day." Shepard rubbed her forehead.

"I'm sure there's some guest rooms in here, somewhere. I've just never bothered to look. One condition, though?"

"Yes?" Shepard asked, warily.

"You tell us more about this place you come from... and any secrets you can offer?" Hawke smirked. "Like those ...things, you used to kill those skeletons earlier today?"

:::

Shepard had gone to bed. It was just Liara and Jack sitting in front of the dying fire, and Merrill, asleep in Hawke's lap.

"Miss Hawke?" Liara asked.

"Hey, no need to be so formal. _Everyone_ calls me Hawke around here, for some reason, but you can -"

"So, what _is_ an apostate, then? Someone called us that when they first saw us land on the mountain." Liara asked.

"Well, an apostate is just a mage, who hasn't joined the Circle. Some of us are harmless, some of us... not so much." Hawke said, staring into the fire.

"Mage? Circle?"

_"Magic_." Jack said. "What, you pull party tricks for a living?"

"Party tricks? What? No -" Hawke raised a hand towards the glowing embers and made it burst back into life with a loud roar.

"- Avast, Isabela, or I'll lash -" Merrill mumbled sleepily, and Hawke ran her fingers through Merrill's hair to quiet her back to sleep.

"No tricks." Hawke whispered.

"They're biotics." Liara gasped to Jack. "They have to be. On a much, much, higher scale. Or... a different scale." Jack shrugged disinterestedly.

"As much as I like to be talked about in front of my face..." Hawke raised an eyebrow.

"I would propose that you would consider us, well... Jack and I, mages too." Liara added.

:::

Long after the flames in the hearth have finally died without interference, Jack seems like she's standing in the middle of a vast desert, except it's frigid instead of hot. There's no dunes or recognizable features in the land, but it's flat as far as the eye can see. Far off into the distance... some structures. Maybe a town.

Maybe a mirage.

A zephyr gambols over the sand, and Jack feels a wave of crushing despair tumble over her with the wind. It pisses her off. She's never had dreams like this before. She normally dreams of pain and torture and the room with the one way mirror on Pragia that she quite can't get out of her subconscious.

This seems different. Too real, almost, though she _knows_ she is dreaming. _What the fuck is this_? she says to herself, rage simmering. Nothing to do here. Nothing but to walk towards the horizon, towards the city, even though it doesn't seem to be getting any closer.

_Who's pulling this shit on me_? she muses, silently. _It's just a fucking dream_. _Just a fucking dream_. _C_'_mon_, _get your shit together_!

Nothing to do but walk, feet digging ever deeper in the silty sand, making it harder and harder to keep moving. Nothing to get angry at except herself.

She clenches her fists so tightly the tiny stubs of her fingernails still cut into her palm. The pain relaxes her, satiates the anger temporarily. Keeps her sane.

2.

Shepard, lying face down on one of the beds in the Hawke estate, opened an eye, armour in bits and pieces on the floor again, in a heap.

She could smell eggs.

She saw Liara, grinning at her, with a plate.

"You slept." she said.

Shepard worked herself vertical.

"I slept. Like a cadaver."

Shepard snatched the plate and inhaled. "No bacon?" she asked.

"I don't even know if they have _pigs_." Liara said, shrugging.

Liara took a seat on the bed.

"What do you think of our hosts? What happened after I collapsed last night? Anything interesting?" Shepard asked between mouthfuls.

"Hawke's a ...biotic. They call biotics 'mages' here... but their abilities are unlike any biotic abilities I've seen."

"What do you mean?"

Liara leaned back on the bed, wrapping her legs around Shepard.

"I just saw a very minor demonstration last night...I guess you'll have to see it for yourself?"

"Tease." Shepard turned back towards the plate.

"Well, they do seem like nice people." Liara added.

:::

"Oh! You're awake. Are you early morning risers too? Hawke likes to stay up late into the night and sleep in until the middle of the day. But not I. The Dalish have always woken with the sun." Merrill burbled.

"No, not usually..." Shepard absently mused to herself. "So. Hawke's a ...mage, right?"

"Oh, yes. We both are, except ..."

"Except what?"

_"Some_ people like to say that I'm a blood mage, but it's not all that bad."

"What's a blood mage?" Shepard asked, still a little sleepy.

"Well... we use blood to enhance the magic?"

Shepard tried to focus a little more. _Coffee_, piped a voice in the back of her mind.

"How does that work, exactly?"

"Here, let me show you." Merrill eagerly drew a short dagger from the inside of her clothes and quickly made a sharp cut across the palm of her hands with a spray of blood, and thrust a bolt of lightning up to the ceiling. The chandelier above shook and rattled.

Shepard looked up, a mixture of confusion and astonishment pooling on her face.

"Merrill, what have I told you about getting blood all over the rugs?" Hawke said, sleepily, from the landing.

_"Ma vhenan_! Did I wake you? I was just..."

Hawke smiled at the others. "My little alarm clock." She kissed Merrill, running her fingers across the side of one cheek and down her chin.

"Sleep well?" Hawke asked.

Shepard nodded, looking around. "Where's Jack?"

Liara shrugged from the library, leafing through a volume.

:::

Shepard found her in the cellars, and saw her still asleep, on top of a large bench, and trod lightly down the stairs.

Jack was writhing and thrashing around - the grips of a nightmare, Shepard guessed. She reached out to her, and Jack threw her across the room, crashing into a stone wall.

Shepard groaned; she wasn't wearing armour.

"What do you want, Shepard?" Jack hissed.

Shepard tried to right herself, unsteady on her feet.

"Not sleeping well, huh..."

Jack grunted, half in affirmation, and stretched her shoulders.

"What were you dreaming about?" Shepard asked, lowering her voice slightly.

"Fuck you. Just get me off this forsaken rock."

"We aren't really much in much of a position to get off this rock, if you remember: the shuttle's kinda screwed right now?"

Jack rubbed her eyes.

"Come on. We'll go check out the town -" Shepard offered.

"If you say we're going shopping, I'm going to kill you."

3.

"What a dump." Jack announced, unceremoniously, as they entered the Hanged Man at noon.

"Ah, but it's a dump with _booze_. Best dump with booze in the city." Hawke added. "And the easiest way to find Isabela. Or Varric."

Varric was in his suite, looking regal in his throne-like chair, and tented his fingers. "Hawke, Hawke, Hawke. Word on the street: you're harbouring some qunari holdouts. But these? These don't look like any qunari I've ever seen..."

"No, they're not. And I'm sure you can make that particular word on the street... disappear?"

"I certainly _can_." Varric chuckled to himself. "... but will I?"

Varric rubbed his fingers together.

"Come on, Hawke. You know how this city operates. That's a lot of palms that need greasing."

Hawke sighed heavily and tossed him a pouch of coins.

"Thanks. I really appreciate it. I'll find a way to repay the debt, I promise." Shepard offered, guiltily.

:::

Liara sat on the floor in Hawke's library, books piled up in messy stacks all around her. The chance to delve into another civilization, new, unknown to the Broker's vast files - tantalizing enough to stay here, with the books, rather than to go with the others and explore the city first-hand.

There would be time for that later - regardless, Hawke mumbled something about there not being room for her anyway, already having four people.

But of course, the writing system was indecipherable. All the books were like this, with the peculiar Ogham-like hatching. All of them. It would be a mammoth task to decipher this from first principles.

Just around the time she thought about giving up, Hawke and Merrill come home; Liara can hear Hawke chatting with Bodahn about something, and Merrill looks in on her.

"Enjoying the books?" Merrill asks.

"No. I can't read any of it." Liara looks at the pile, forlornly.

"The Dalish aren't big on writing things down. We keep things in our heads." Merrill taps the side of her head, to punctuate. "Well, most of the time, that is."

"Okay, then _tell_ me something. Anything. It's so frustrating, sitting here with a window into a civilization, its history, right in front of me, but locked away like this, out of grasp."

"I can't tell you much about the humans' tales. But I can tell you a story about the elves of old, if you like?"

_Paivel told me this story to me one night when I was still in Ferelden. I remember that he looked concerned, like telling this to me is some secret I would be better of not knowing, but on the other hand, he almost doesn't believe it himself. But he had told me anyway. He knows I am First to Marethari, the Keeper of our clan._

_There was a hahren, Yenor, in the camp in Ferelden, who was ill with fever. They had tried their best to heal him, but it was no use: he was delirious and close to death._

_In the depth of the night, Yenor woke with a scream. Paivel ran to his tent, fearful of his health. But Yenor tells him that it was just a dream. A terrifying nightmare. _

_Yenor dreamt of the Forgotten Ones. _

_There were two clans of gods, the Creators, who looked after the People, and the Forgotten Ones, who preyed upon us. But Fen'Harel tricked them away in the heavens and the abyss, and now they watch the People from their prisons._

_Yenor dreamt that the Forgotten Ones would one day be free again. A prophecy. And when they came back, it would not be Fen'Harel to send them back to the abyss. _

_Paivel asked Yenor whether the Creators would return with the Forgotten Ones. Yenor did not know, he only saw the Forgotten Ones, dark and indistinct, reaching across the Silent Plains._

_Paivel was intrigued. He doesn't know what to think. How could the Forgotten Ones have escaped? Was this the doing of Fen'Harel, finally bored with the end of the war?_

_But Yenor was exhausted. Paivel set his excitement aside, and helps Yenor back to sleep. _

_He knows that no one would believe the story. It could be the result of an ill man and his fever dreams. Or it could be inspiration, plumbed from the Fade?_

_Paivel had never made up his mind. But he had told me anyway. It is a Keeper's job to remember. It might be useful one day, he said, and there's some comfort that I find in it. _

Liara furrows her brow.

"What's wrong? You didn't like it?"

"No, I did. It's fascinating." Liara says, deep in thought.

"I ... don't know why I told you that story. I don't think I've told anyone that story. I suppose I've been thinking about the clan..."

Merrill looks down.

"But you're not with them any more."

"I left them. Well, they didn't want me around any more. I had to take a chance to restore our lost history. Our lost culture."

"Do you miss them?" Liara asks, quietly.

"Of course I miss them. Wherever we are, wherever we live, we're all one People."

Merrill looks at the floor for a moment, thoughtfully, then peers up at Liara.

"Let me show you something. Maybe you'll be able to help me?"

:::

Jack walks the streets of this unfamiliar city alone. Doesn't care what everyone else is doing, needs some air. _Need some fucking _space, she thinks to herself. Need to feel good after the dreams she's been having.

Doesn't care where she's going. This part of town looks kinda dingy. Dark. She smiles a thin smile. _My kinda place_. The alley's still, and the hubbub of the city seems faraway.

:::

Liara walks through town, trying to keep an eye on the elf, and simultaneously looking up at the tall stone buildings, marvelling at their design and detailed, effortless masonry. _Stage two civilization, pre industrialized, limited scientific - _she thinks to herself, and Merrill suddenly yanks on her arm and out of her thoughts and leads her down another passageway.

Soon, they come to a part of the city, seemingly away from everything else; a cul-de-sac, with a cluster of hodgepodge buildings around a sprawling tree, casting shadows throughout, save for strips of sunlight filtering through, and then Merrill disappears into a small house. Liara feels awkward for a moment, like she's intruding on something, but supposes she must follow, and so she does.

"Come." Merrill tells Liara, into the adjoining room, and Liara follows, slowly. In one side of the room lies a small bed, and the other, tools strewn all around a gigantic sculpture of some kind: a large, thick sheet of glass adorned by twisting knots of wood, and capped with a relief of a leaping horse.

Merrill looks at it helplessly, then at Liara, then extends a hand to it. "Well? What do you think?"

"It's a mirror? The designs are very interesting."

"It doesn't work!" Merrill sits on the bed, with a flop. "I've been working on it for years, and it still doesn't work." Merrill holds her face in her hands and rubs her eyes.

Liara walks up to it, brushes her fingers to it; the glass is smooth, yet appears to be sandblasted, non-reflective. "Maybe it needs polishing?" she offers, gently.

"No, I..." Merrill stands up, pushes back her hair. "It's not just an ordinary mirror. You can't sense anything from it?"

Liara puts her palm against the glass for a moment and closes her eyes: for an instant - just an instant - it feels like her hand disappears beyond the threshold, and it's as if she's reaching around in a dark room, unable to see anything in the pitch black. And then the sensation stops, quick as it was to manifest itself. Liara instinctively takes a step back.

"I see what you mean."

:::

Jack hears grit grind against the cobblestones. Someone's behind her, fleet of foot, muffled. Disguised pretty well. _They don't know who they're messing with_.

Into a doorway, pressed flat up against the jamb. _Shhh_.

Isabela puts a hand to her hip and rolls her eyes. "Playing hard to get, are we?"

Jack spins around and cocks her pistol in the same movement, and aims it right at her forehead.

"What is that, some sort of weapon?" Isabela chuckles.

"Wanna find out?"

Isabela draws a single dagger and pushes the gun aside with it, smirking. "As much as I like having weapons pushed in my face, I like to get to know someone first."

:::

"Now what?" Shepard asks Hawke, as they make to leave the tavern. Shepard was on her own now. Left to her own devices. All she ever knew was how to shoot things, and shoot things with ruthless efficiency. It wasn't what she dreamed about doing with her life, as a little girl. She never had a choice -

"Well, what are you good at? I could see if I can find you a job in town, set you up with Athenril? What else are you good at?"

"I ... don't know."

Hawke stopped, and looked at her closely. Wordlessly.

"Come with me, I suppose. I've got some ..._errands_ to run."

:::

Merrill was leaving her house when Hawke arrived at the alienage, Liara emerging behind her.

Shepard shot Liara a quick nod.

"Nyssa. Meredith's asked me to find Huon, and Nyssa might know where he is." Hawke asked Merrill.

"Oh, she's got a stall nearby. Come."

Hawke and Merrill kept talking. Something about finding an apostate, some other blood mage.

"Shepard," Liara whispered, "this is astonishing."

"What is it?" Shepard whispered back.

"This mirror... well, it's no _ordinary_ mirror. I can't explain it, but there's a remarkable power behind it. These people are both simultaneously advanced technologically but ... they're also behind on the standard civilization scales."

Shepard nodded, thoughtfully. Hawke and Merrill were finished.

"We've got to come back at night. We'll find him then." Hawke said.

"Why are we looking for him? What's he done?" Shepard asks.

"Another apostate." Hawke sighs, discontented. She waves her hands. "It's a long story. You'll come, tonight?"

Shepard nods again. "Well, you've got some time to tell it to me, then."

:::

It's dusk and the hearth hasn't been lit yet. Hawke paces in the half-light. "Mages hunting mages. Makes my stomach hurt." Hawke says to herself. Shepard mills about, checking, loading, and unloading her pistol; Merrill sits, holding the snoozing mabari. Liara decides to try and decipher the writing system in the library after all, and Jack - no one's seen her since morning.

"Maybe it's because I haven't eaten since this morning?" Hawke adds.

"You're babbling, _ma vhenan_." Merrill notes, softly.

Hawke grins, then laughs, a creeping touch of mania in her voice.

"It's all Meredith's fault, you see." Hawke turns to Shepard.

"Meredith?"

"Knight-Commander of the templars here. They are the prison wardens, and we're the escapees. Meredith says hunt a few apostates, stay out of the Circle -"

"- you scratch her back, she scratches yours -"

Hawke nods, smiles thinly at the idiom new to her ears.

"I am but a humble puppet." She shrugs, dramatically. "Everyone in Kirkwall seems to want to tug at my strings."

Shepard knows how Hawke feels. She imagines that Hawke and herself are victims of circumstances, even though she doesn't know much about her past. Shepard doesn't dare; she never digs to deep. It's almost that her training has stopped her from feeling too much - know just enough to get the job done, then move on. _Maybe I should just ask, for once?_

Silence, but it seems a comfortable one. Introspective.

Too late. "It's just about time, I suppose." Hawke says, finally.

:::

Isabela lies, spent and exhausted, with a cheesy grin on her face.

"Praise the Maker I stumbled upon someone with your skill!" she exclaims.

Jack perches up around Isabela's right leg and stares at her: a lion stalking a gazelle, stalking silently up to face her, eye to eye.

"Don't come for nothin', you know." she says, finally, and goes in for the kill - Isabela's right wrist pinned to the bed with Jack's forearm.

Isabela thinks the move clumsy, and uses her free side to spin Jack about until she's the one pinning Jack down, with _both_ arms.

"Someone's going to get a good spanking..."

:::

They steal down the stairs towards the alienage: Hawke and Merrill taking point, Shepard and Liara taking up the rear.

Shepard wraps her hands around the pistol. The night air feels cloying. Unnatural. _Are the people here just that used to it? _

_Maybe it's just this part of town_, she thinks.

"Huon." Hawke whispers to the group. An elf walks slowly through the courtyard. With purpose. Intent.

A glint of light near his side. Hands wrapped around - metal -

Shepard rings out a shot from the sidearm.

A clean shot, through the chest.

Liara's hands raise, glow slightly, and the air crackles around them. Shepard looks at her, pushes her arms down, gently.

Wailing. Nyssa runs towards them: "What did you do! What did you do!"

Hawke tilts her head aside, deferring.

"He was going to kill you." Shepard says, finally.

"You don't know that! How could you have known that! How?!"

"Let me talk to her." Merrill takes Nyssa aside.

"Look. On his side." Shepard adds, and they walk towards Huon's lifeless body.

:::

"What a mess." Hawke adds, as they return to the estate, shaking off the rain from a surprise storm. "Maker. Fire." was all she could manage.

They all huddle around the soothing flame, sopping wet.

The door sneaks open, and Jack slides her way through.

They exchange glances. She wasn't expecting them.

"Bitch of a night, huh." she adds, casually.

:::

Liara thinks she remembers this place. She stands in front of a large wall of glass, looking down over the glittering water. She remembers this from her youth. Back when things were less - complicated.

Some of the details aren't quite right. There's what looks like a castle off at sea, and the walls of the room aren't straight, but they're warped, like plastic left in the sun.

She hears a peal of joyous laughter from outside the room. It's sounds like Mama Nezzy. Instantly, she's happy to hear Benezia again, and that she's in a good mood. There's a part of Liara that desperately wants to see her again; instantly she makes for the doors, and -

It's gone. There's no one here. _This is some sort of dream_. Liara tells herself.

But she can't rationalize away her emotions, and a yawning chasm of emptiness returns in her chest. A loneliness: not the mature considered contextualised emotion of a woman in the matron stage, it's the instinctive emotion of a maiden - or even younger than that. Shepard had told her stories about human children being afraid of the dark, their imaginations running wild with impossible possibilities...

She walks through the house. No one is home. The graceful abstract sculptures sitting on the shelves in the wall are twisted: the characteristic twin bird-like deltas twist and warp where they meet.

She notices that outside, it's no longer daylight, but night, and none of the electric lighting outside is working. One of the little sculptures is stained with blood, and she drops it, frightened -

Shepard is still sleping. The rhythm of the rowboat and the oars, in, up, out, down. She's not alone. She dare not sleep again tonight, she thinks, and gets as close to Shepard as she can without her waking.

4.

In that same time, Shepard remembers while she sleeps. But it's not like any memory she knows. It's some time after Akuze, and Shepard's walking around ...some rock. Some rock that some CO thought would make good shore leave.

But it's perpetually dark, rainy, and the only real illumination comes from the neon lighting throughout the streets.

She's not thinking straight. She stumbles in a daze, muscles filled with a stifling mix of anguish and despair. All the streets look the same: she looks forward down the street, then back.

Shepard has no idea where she is. She looks up. None of the stars are visible, except the shadow of something unfamiliar off in the distance. Some kind of moon?

Defeated, she leans against a wall and rubs her face. She's not happy to be alive after Akuze. She feels ..._envious_. And then, guiltily, she pushes the thought out of her mind, and thinks the only thing that makes sense to do right now is to keep walking. And maybe that if she just keeps on walking, she'll find herself mystically where she needs to end up.

Shepard remembers this moment.

But now it's morning, and Shepard is not a biotic.

So, then she forgets.

:::

Hawke's standing in the doorway. "Sleep well?"

"I feel like shit." Shepard mumbles absently.

"Well, that's good." Hawke smirks.

"Got any coffee?" A thundering headache decides to crescendo at that moment. Caffeine deprivation.

"What is coffee? I just thought I'd grab you for a moment to explain this gun thing of yours."

"No coffee?" Shepard's mind wanders, sad at the thought.

"Curiosity has gotten the better of me. And it's going to be a long day." Hawke adds.

Shepard gropes the side table for the pistol and ejects the clip.

:::

"Shepard." Jack says, flatly.

"Yeah?" Shepard says, preoccupied. She looks at the walls suspiciously as she tries to navigate down a flight of stairs into "Darktown", as Hawke puts it ("Don't look at me, the blasted Imperium weren't known for their creativity", Shepard remembers her saying).

"What am I doing?" she asks, with a note of irritation.

They're down. The corridors are wider here, less dank, but this was definitely still the undercity.

"You're meeting a friend of mine." Hawke adds, helpfully, half-jokingly. "This way..."

Past beggars and market stalls with odd-looking bits of pottery and god-knows-what for sale, down the stairs, across the way: "Anders." Hawke announces.

Anders looks behind Hawke to the little gang of Shepard, Jack, and Liara. "Welcome to my ... clinic." Anders says.

Hawke sighs. "Oh, it's all right, we're all _friends_ here. He's an apostate, just like me, just like those two."

"And you?" Anders asks Shepard.

"I'm beginning to feel a bit left out."

Anders puts a hand to his chin. "Hm. So long as you're sympathetic to the cause..."

"Cause?" Shepard asks.

"You haven't been in Kirkwall long, _have_ you?"

And Anders explains the cause of the mages to them all, again, through his eyes. Shepard doesn't really understand - revolutionary stuff like this is from Earth's ancient history. Divisions and borderlines and fighting for equality seems awfully antique to her sensibilities. It seems like it hasn't sunk in, that this is just a fairytale. Like watching a quaint historical play, she can leave when it's over, back to a life that had it's miseries and pain - but at least we weren't murdering people for getting exposed to eezo any more... or treating people with different skin tones any differently than each other.

Shepard glanced to Liara, looking blank, indifferent. I wonder if the asari had much knowledge of prejudice, other than the disdain for "purebloods"?

And to Jack, who seemed to be bored and disinterested, but Shepard could see rapt interest underneath the veneer.

:::

"Come on. Let's go have some of The Hanged Man's mystery stew." Hawke says, flatly.

Shepard looks worried. "Yeah, I know." Hawke saw the face she made. "But we've got _business _there."

"I'll catch up." Jack interjects.

"Funny girl, that one." Hawke grins.

"Maybe she's familiar with the stew."

:::

"Wow, are you a mage? Because you just magicked my breath away."

Hawke rolls her eyes. This "Emilie de Launcet" is pathetic.

"Are all apostates like this?" Liara asks Hawke, innocently; without a beat, she turns to her, and gasps with mock disdain.

"Hit him." Shepard offers.

"What?" Emile looks frightened. "Oh, buggery, I know what this is about. I'm not a blood mage, all right? I started that rumour because I thought it would make me sound dangerous and ... suave..."

"Hold me, I think I'm about to vomit." Hawke groans.

"I'll make you a deal, all right? Give me one night ... just one night. One of the tavern girls, Nella, agreed to lie with me. I even paid for a room... please, let me have this. You can take me back in chains after."

Shepard looks at Hawke for approval. She nods, and Shepard swiftly wraps a hand around the wretch's throat and runs him up against the wall; the barflies pick up their drinks and shuffle to different benches.

"No matter how deluded the woman, you'll turn yourself in right now, or I'll turn you into a stain on the wall. You get that, Mr de Launcet?"

"Oh, you win. I'll go back to the circle. This was a stupid idea from the beginning."

Shepard lets him crumple to the ground in a heap, and turns to the group.

"Pathetic."

Hawke, smirking, claps in return. "I think you're getting the hang of Kirkwall."

:::

"There you are." Liara finally climbed out onto one of the belltowers of the Chantry.

Jack didn't respond; she was staring out to the horizon, sitting up on the stone ledge, as if entranced by the view. She wasn't wearing her robes: from this height, she was probably impossible to see with the naked eye.

"I've been looking all over for you." Liara said, removing her hood.

"Why would _you _be looking for _me_?" Jack said, without looking away.

"I wanted to talk to you."

"... I'm busy." Jack said, unconvincingly; she didn't care.

"I can see that. It must require a lot of your concentration to do nothing."

Jack sighed, rolled her eyes, and got down from the ledge. In the small belltower, there wasn't a lot of space between them and a sheer drop to Hightown below.

"I was _thinking_. These biotics here, mages, whatever the fuck you want to call them - they're ... _connected_ to themselves, their powers, their being. They're one in the same thing. Their powers define them and their entire lives." Jack turned to look out again.

"You and all the other biotics out there... " she waved an arm to the sky, "you think of it like a tool. Like it's something you acquired. Like the ... clothes on your back rather than the skin on your flesh."

"All asari are biotics, Jack." Liara added, trying to be factual, but a tone of condescension crept into her voice that Liara didn't consciously intend.

"Yeah, so it should be a part of you, but you don't think of it that way, do you? They brought me up to fight and kill. You of all people should know that better than most. They brought me up to love watching seeing someone die at my hand. And I do. You, you ..." Jack looked at Liara with a measure of contempt, "you hate it, don't you? How can you stand hating _who you are_?"

Liara leant backwards slightly on her hip. "Just because I don't like to _kill_, doesn't mean I have to hate myself."

"It's in your blood. You're special. All asari are biotics, right? What do you think the powers are for?"

Liara looked blank for a moment.

"Why do you think they're all scared of the mages here?"

:::

Merrill sometimes dreams of Hawke, her charming wan smile, faded tattoo around both eyes, and the bright flame red of her hair; this time, they are playing a game across the Fade. Hawke runs off into the distance, and Merrill runs after her. A game of hide-and-seek in the realm of the dreamers.

Hawke hides behind a spire of earth, twisted and warped up into a colossal menhir. Merrill laughs with joy; her voice echoes unnaturally, otherworldly in the... air of the Fade, from all directions at once. It doesn't matter: the Fade is a strange place. They were both used to it.

Merrill creeps up to the obelisk closely, and edges around it, slowly... quietly... seeing at first an arm and then the rest of Hawke, with a wide, goofy grin on her face.

She hugs Hawke, burying her face in her chest, smiling. Hawke doesn't feel real in the Fade: neither cold nor warm, but like soft gingham to the touch, fluttering in the breeze.

It doesn't matter. Even though Merrill sleeps, ensconced in Hawke's arms, they can connect here in this realm too. Eyes from beyond the mundane watch them, but that doesn't matter either. Hawke is here, standing beside her. Taller. Braver.

A grey wind rises. At first, it's like smoke, wispy and selfish, tumbling in the air like a drop of blood diffusing through water. Hawke looks worried, and it frightens Merrill.

They've both never seen this before.

And then it grows thicker, and soon it's like a deep fog. Merrill's holding on to Hawke's hand as tight as she can; it's the only form she can hold on to. Lights swirl in the fog, reflective and indistinct. Merrill pulls Hawke's hand, trying to keep her where she can see her.

Her hand moves too easily. She thinks she's still holding Hawke's hand, but when she looks down - she's not holding on to anything at all.

Alone.

The wind blows stronger, but the fog remains. Whispers carry on the wind, phonemes indistinct. She feels like she's being watched. Watched by countless eyes. As if she is standing in a great stadium, under the scrutiny of thousands. No, millions of eyes.

Merrill's terrified.

"We seek..." the whispers manage to say. Merrill tries to remember the first time Marethari and her found Audacity on Sundermount, the way the Keeper addressed the spirit, the authority in her voice.

It doesn't help. She feels insignificant. Hollow. The wind sighs and bucks in the air, and blows stronger.

"We seek the One Of Her Kind."

Merrill can't manage words right now. Her throat seizes.

She coughs, pathetically. Not very authoritative.

"You harbour her! Where is she?" the whispers say.

"Who are you talking about?" Merrill manages to offer.

A light gambols in the fog like a searchlight; a chattering, clicking, mechanical noise carries in the wind.

"The One Of Her Kind. Where is she?"

"I don't know who you're talking about!" An overtone of distress creeps into her voice.

The noise grows louder, harsher - angry, she thinks - and the light grows brighter. Whatever it is Merrill's standing on begins to shake and judder - and then instantly lifts, and it's dark, and she feels Hawke's arms on her shoulders, rousing her gently.

She's awake, in Hawke's room, in bed: it's quiet, it's dark, and all she can see is the outline of the woman Merrill loves, looking the same as she always does, and she's warm and real and feels like she always does, like skin and muscle and deep endless pools of _love_- it overwhelms her - Merrill grasps her tightly. Like one who was drowning clings on to a raft. To safety.

"I lost you for a little while." Hawke says, quietly. "What happened?"

Merrill says nothing. She doesn't let go.

Hawke slumps back down, exhausted, holding out her arms towards her. Merrill lies back down and Hawke's warm hands wrap around her.

"Sleep." Hawke says. But Merrill doesn't want to go back to sleep. She stares out into the inky shadows, and tries to force into her memory Hawke's touch, her presence.


End file.
